Too often I approach a day with the trepidation of someone who doesn’t have a choice. I lock myself into the flight patterns of a migratory bird who only longs to land. But just beneath my feet are ample branches upon which to perch. I pass them ceaselessly on my fruitless journey to make it to a place where the air is temperate and the season ripe. But I just kept flying through winters. Perhaps all I need to do is land and allow summer to reach me. Settle comfortably on my branch and rest until the wind turns warm and the sun thaws the land. Perhaps I can never catch what is always behind me. Perhaps what I seek is never out of reach, simply out to scope.

I rarely allow myself to choose my path as the day unfolds. I wake up with a duty roster and I check off my list faithfully. But you could waste a perfectly wonderful day with the minutiae of duty. Seems that you might just be able to remedy it by relenting to the chaos of unknowns. So let’s say I did say no, maybe I’ll see how I feel. Is that so novel? When did I nail my heart to a stake and leave it for picking? When did I commit to fulfilling the wishes of everyone else over my own? When did I start staining a perfectly good Saturday with my own brand of foolish fealty?

So take me at my word, one weary traveler of days to another, I will start letting myself choose. I will forgive my human need to change my mind, I will embrace it as the wonderful renewable resource that it is. In fact, I think I might start worshipping at its feet. Our ability to learn, and adapt, and start all over. What a profoundly underrated thing. I think I’ll start tomorrow.